American plans more flight cuts By Dan Reed, USA TODAY American Airlines said Monday that it will trim its domestic flight schedule by an additional 3.2% in the first quarter of 2003. Although not entirely a surprise, the further cutback by the world's largest airline could start another round of flight reductions among the nation's major airlines. American had been expecting to offer about 0.1% less capacity in the first quarter than in the first quarter this year. Now that figure will be down about 3.3%. With previous reductions in service, American's domestic capacity will be down 18.6% from what it was in the first quarter of 2001, considered a benchmark because it preceded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The closer we get to the first quarter, the sharper demand comes into focus for us," says Al Becker, an American spokesman. "The first quarter, historically, is the weakest anyway. But it's becoming clear that there's going to be more opportunity for us to trim capacity further to bring it into line with demand." The first-quarter cuts mean American's capacity for all of 2003 will fall about 5% below its capacity this year. That's assuming no more scale backs are announced for later in the year. Becker says American's capacity will rise in the seasonally stronger second and third quarters, as it usually does, but will remain well below last year's second and third quarters. Most other airlines' capacity in 2003 is expected to be flat or down compared with 2001. The only exception among the majors is Southwest, the only airline not to shrink after the terrorist attacks last year and the first to resume growing. But American's further tweaking of its first-quarter capacity could set off a mild chain reaction. Lehman Bros. analyst Gary Chase, who owns no airline stocks, says there's no indication of near-term improvement in demand or pricing. Decisions by airlines to make similar modest incremental capacity cuts, he says, would be "a mild positive." In other American Airlines news: The airline and its pilots union have agreed informally to suspend the planned sale of Executive Airlines, the Miami-based unit of American Eagle regional airline. AMR, parent of American and American Eagle, had planned to sell Executive to meet pilot contract limits on the number of seat miles offered by American Eagle while any American pilots are laid off. The Transportation Department has approved American's request for antitrust immunity to cooperate with Swiss, the reconstituted national airline of Switzerland. The carriers will be able to share market data, jointly allocate capacity, set prices, share costs and split profits from combined operations between the USA, Switzerland and on to points in Europe and the Middle East. The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site: Roj (Roger James) *************************************************** escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: http://www.tntisland.com CBC Website http://www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ The Trinbago Site of the Week: (chgdev) http://www.chagdev.com/ (Chaguaramas Development Authority) courtesy of Roj Trinbago Website & TnT Web Directory Roj's Trinbago Website: http://www.tntisland.com TnT Web Directory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************